“That is not…”
“What value did you place on your life?” I added.
“My lord?”
“If all of this is being done to bring me back into my father’s favor, then it is assumed that I will become the next Earl of Dorshire, is it not?”
“Aye, my lord,” Collins said with confusion.
Thorp sighed heavily and returned to his seat with a knowing smile.
“Well, Mister Collins,” I continued calmly. “If you do anything to my person other than bore me with Bible verses in your attempt to rectify my deficiencies of propriety, I will kill you at the first opportunity: be that on this voyage, or ten years from now when I can use my position as Earl to hire men such as Mister Thorp to do it for me.”
Collins’ mouth fell open, and he stammered for a bit before marshaling his convictions. “You will not, my lord, because I will succeed in freeing you from the Devil’s influence, and then you will not wish to do such a thing. You will thank me.”
I snorted disparagingly and looked to Thorp. “And how much is your life worth?”
He smiled. “My lord, I asked for a great deal of money from your father for this business, enough for me to disappear. Please understand, when I was first contracted, I thought you to be some little fop sodomite, and I rather thought Mister Collins could not help but be successful. But now…” He shrugged and met my gaze levelly. “I see I was wise to ask for the sum I did.”
I smiled. “Even if I die: even if Collins is successful in breaking me such that I will not seek your head: there are those who will not forgive you.”
He looked away. “I have come to realize that.”
“And so… You are a fool, or you fear my father more?”
Thorp smirked. “I like my job.”
I recalled his words about deriving pleasure from cruelty and I smiled grimly. Though Thorp dressed and acted much as Alonso once had, this was a man much as Hastings had been: a man who enjoyed the pain of others.
I looked to Watkins and Lots, and they looked away quickly.
I gave yet another disparaging snort. “The excuse that you are merely doing a job you were paid to do, by men who will bear the responsibility in this life and the next, will not save you, either.”
This seemed to give Watkins pause, but it angered Lots.
“Cease your foolishness, my lord,” Collins said. “We are doing God’s work. Your threats will have no effect on us.”
I sighed. “Well, Mister Collins, it is not for me to judge, or you, but God.”
“I have no fear of His judging me harshly for this,” Collins said.
“And I have no fear of His judging me harshly for the things you judge me for.”
“My lord… that is…”
I smirked. “Heresy? Or Blasphemy? Make up your mind quickly, Collins. You dance with the Devil, remember?”
“Aye, aye, I do,” he said with conviction. “And you shall no longer call the tune. We will commence with your instruction.” He frowned at me anew. “But first, you will don a proper shirt and we will remove those heathen hoops from your ears.”
“Nay,” I said. The shirt I was willing to bend on, the earrings, no: Gaston had placed them there. “Fuck off.”
Apparently they had discussed such an eventuality beforehand. Collins stepped back, and Watkins and Lots hauled me to my feet, looped my manacle chain over a hook on a beam, and gave me five sharp blows with a cane across my shoulders.
The suddenness of it drove the breath from my lungs: I inhaled fire. At another time in my life I would have feared the helplessness and been stunned by the treatment such that I would have sought to appease my captors and said some droll thing in capitulation before withdrawing to lick my wounds until I could determine what course of action to pursue to foil them. Not this time. My Horse would have none of it. He raged, rearing and nearly unseating me such that I knew I best appease Him or lose myself to madness. So I let Him have His head.
“Now my lord,” Collins was saying, “we do not wish to…”
I twisted in my chain and spat on him. “Fuck you!”
I soon found myself wearing the shirt, gagged, my earrings removed, and my limbs fixed in a pair of iron stocks such that I was nearly bent in two with my wrists between my ankles. To my credit, they had to call two additional men in to accomplish this. I was bruised and battered, and still angry beyond reason. Thorp had laughed through the whole of it. Collins had withdrawn.
All I could do was fervently thank the Gods yet again that Gaston was spared this.
At last Thorp withdrew, and my gaolers retreated to the far side of the room to sit at the table and play cards. I tested my bonds and found they were designed quite cruelly: the loops of metal holding my ankles and wrists were aligned along one flat surface and did not move such that I could draw my legs up a little and find some comfort. I would shortly be miserable as my muscles cramped at such an awkward position, and if I struggled I would quickly bloody myself on the rough metal.
I held still and tried to think. I knew a sane man, a man who believed there was order to the world based upon lies, would have vowed to alleviate his suffering at their hands by whatever means he could concoct, until such time as he could be rescued from them. I could come to lie convincingly enough for Collins’ feeble brain: never giving him all he wanted, but allowing him to feel there was no need to resort to torture: and thus spare myself a great deal of trouble. But I was no longer such a sane man. I was committed to truth. It was all I had. That and faith: faith in my love for Gaston and his for me, and faith that the Gods would not be so cruel or misguided as to let men such as this or my father triumph.
I vowed I would accept the pain. I would fight them, and every ache served to reinforce my anger and indignation such that when Collins returned and ordered my release I had a great army of resolve at my disposal. I fought. My gaolers were fast, but Lots would have lost an eye if my back had not been so stiff. I ended up tied down over a barrel, the silly shirt torn from me, and my back striped by the cane until I bled. I wanted more. This was akin to my Horse running beneath Gaston. I had the bit in my teeth, and the pain receded as if blown away by the breeze of my passing.
In the morning, I did not attempt to fight at once: I could barely stand from the stiffness when they released me. They left the remains of the shirt flapping on my arms, and warily offered me water and a pot. I drank the one and used the other. Then they led me to the table to sit until Collins and Thorp arrived.
“I heard I missed something,” Thorp said as he crossed behind me to sit.
“My lord, it does not…” Collins was saying.
“Spare me,” I snapped. “How is my sister? What atrocities have you heaped upon her?”
“None, my lord,” Collins said. “She is a lady and has been most cooperative.”
I sighed. So Sarah was sane: good for her: there were enough madmen in the family.
“You shall be allowed to visit with her if you are cooperative,” Collins said.
I shook my head. “She is a grown woman. There is no aid she can offer me or I her in this. She will face it her way, and I in mine.”
“And how will you face this… endeavor?” Collins asked.
I spit on him and grinned.
Watkins raised his arm, but Collins waved him off.
“My lord, do you truly intend to test us so?” Collins asked with a troubled frown as he dabbed the spittle off his cheek.
“I will not cooperate,” I said flatly, “with this endeavor. I will pray for deliverance, and I will suffer as necessary.”
Collins puffed up to say something and paused. “Wait, you will pray for deliverance?”
“From evil. From my father. From you, you imbecile.”
Collins appeared sincerely perplexed. “How can you say such a thing? I am not evil. Your father is not evil. It is you who exist in a state of sin. Are you truly possessed?”
I paused to consider my words. It was one thing to hav
e them torture me to correct my moral deficiencies; it was another for this man to think he must exorcise me or some such rubbish—or to announce in England that I should be burned. My father might have none of it—but the Church, either Catholic or the Church of England—could override the wishes of a lord. Oddly, I found I was willing to die for love, for being a sodomite even, but not for heresy. To that end I decided I would watch my tongue, and perhaps risk angering the Gods by referring to Them in the singular.
The thought caused me some amusement and I smiled. “Nay, I am not possessed by any spirit or demon. You gave me much to think on last night, and I thought on it with great fervor.”
“And you came to the conclusion I am evil?” he asked with wonder.
“Nay, I knew that before. Nay, last night I came to resolve that I will live as a man of truth, though it take me to my grave. It is all I feel I can offer God as to the truth of my convictions and the integrity of my soul; that despite whatever sins I might have committed against my fellow man, that I will walk in the Light of Truth.”
He shook his head. “But… that is… What is this light of truth? Is it not God?”
“It is love.”
“Love? For God?” he asked hopefully.
“Aye, and for… man, or rather, one man in specific.”
“But… My lord, God views man loving man as an abomination,” he said.
I had been quoted the Bible verses involving my purported perfidy before. I smiled. “The Bible says that man lying with another man as with a woman is an abomination. I have never lain with a man as if he were a woman. I have no interest in such a thing. If I lie with a woman, it is because she is a woman and I want to treat her as one. If I lie with a man, it is because he is a man and I want to treat him as one.”
Thorp began to chuckle.
Collins frowned with confusion. “But… but… Do you not wish to place your prick in a man?”
“Aye.”
“Then that is what is meant,” Collins countered. “A man should only wish to place his prick in a woman. So if you wish to place your prick in a man, then you wish to use him as you would a woman.”
I shrugged. “I see your argument. I do not agree with it.”
“But, my lord, you… must agree with it. It is the Word of God,” he said.
“Nay, it is your interpretation of the word of God.”
“But Mister Collins’ interpretation is the generally-accepted one,” Thorp said.
I shrugged again. “Aye, I know. I think it is wrong nonetheless.”
“So you would place your opinion above all others?” Thorp asked.
I smiled. “Why should I not? Martin Luther did. Henry the Eighth did. I assume neither of you are Catholic.”
“So you are saying you are their peer?” Thorp taunted.
“Why not? I am a nobleman by birth, and it is a thing I cannot escape—as you noted. They were men. I am a man. We are entitled to our opinions. Granted, it helps if one can marshal an army to defend one’s position when it threatens the politics and power of others.”
Thorp looked to Collins. “You will not win this argument.”
“Why, sir?” Collins asked.
“Well, for one thing, you are too stupid,” Thorp said with a shrug. “But nay, you will need to break his will before he will hear your words.”
Collins took a deep breath. “I had hoped to avoid…”
“Of course you did,” Thorp said dismissively. “Unless you are entirely successful—such that Lord Marsdale thanks you—you will have to explain your methods to the Earl. You have been told what will likely trouble him the most—short of our having his lover on hand—and I suggest you employ it.”
I tensed at his sly smile, and felt Lots heavy hands close over my shoulders and press down to hold me in the chair.
Collins sighed. “Very well, then.” He looked to Watkins. “We will employ the harsher measures as we discussed. I do not wish to…witness such things.” He stood and left us with a wave of his handkerchief.
My gaolers dragged me out of the chair and threw me over the barrel I had occupied in the night: gagging me and tying my wrists and ankles to rings in the floor once again. I was afraid I knew what they intended, but I frantically maintained the hope that I was wrong, and my father had included the thing I feared in the list of proscribed injuries to be delivered to my person. The hope died when they tore away my breeches. Why had I hoped he would proscribe it now when he had allowed Shane to perpetrate it before?
I lost myself to my Horse’s rage and panic when I felt the grease on my arse. I was only barely aware that the thing occurring was not what I expected. Instead of raping me, they stuffed a large object in my hole and left it there. The initial penetration hurt immensely, but once that passed, it was merely uncomfortable and humiliating. I hung there on the barrel, struggling to breathe against the pressure on my chest and the desire to cry.
I prayed. Not in my usual manner of telling the Gods what I desired. Nay, I begged the Gods that I would be rescued from this night terror; and that none I cared for would be harmed in the doing of it; and that all involved in this atrocity against me would die horrible deaths at my hand; and I thanked Them fervently that Gaston was spared this.
When darkness fell, the object—which I was at last able to see resembled a carved wooden turnip—was removed, and I was released from the barrel, given a small cup of water, and placed in the damnable stocks and dumped on my pallet. I spent the night in misery. I no longer felt the need to run. I was full of anger, and pain, but surprisingly, not fear or uncontrollable madness. Old memories of Shane’s abuses had not surfaced, nor did I feel the storm of insanity circling me as I had last winter in Port Royal. My mind was calm and sure.
At dawn, I was released and allowed to stretch and attend to my needs. Once again I was given only water, and my stomach knotted in disappointment at the empty intrusion, even as my mouth and throat delighted in drinking it. I was light-headed when they sat me in the chair. I reveled in sitting with my back straight and tried to think about what tack I should take this day. I supposed it depended on what winds I was presented with.
Thorp seemed amused at my appearance for some reason. “Is it comfortable to sit?” he goaded.
I ignored him, and he sat at the table with a bottle of wine I could smell. It made me ill.
When Collins arrived, he had the gall to gaze upon me with apology and sympathy. I glared at him until he mustered words.
“My lord, was that pleasant? Do you truly find pleasure in such treatment?” Collins asked.
“Nay, you damn fool,” I growled.
He grimaced. “But is that not the pleasure you find in other men: impaling one another in your nether holes?”
Watkins was behind me, but his hands were not about my shoulders. My chained hands rested upon the table. I lunged. I knew they would not give me time to strangle the bastard, so I chose to do as much damage as one plunge would allow. I got two fingers in Collins’ right eye. They pulled me off him and clubbed me to the floor, but I had been successful: my fingers were coated in jelly, and Collins was screaming and holding his bleeding socket.
I laughed as they dragged me to the beam and chained me standing with my hands above my head. The beating that followed left me hanging limply from my wrists.
I woke in the stocks, not remembering being taken down from the beam. There was light, but whether it was the same day or the next, I could not tell. I ached so that I thought another beating might have been a relief. I was released and allowed to relieve myself. Then I was given a cup of gruel and another of water. I drank them greedily. Then they chained me standing again and beat me with a knotted rope until I passed into unconsciousness.
I woke over the barrel with the plug in my arse and they caned me. I woke in the stocks. This went on for days. I could not tell how many. I did not see Collins, and even Thorp soon found my pain boring. There was gruel and water here and there. Sometimes they allowed me to re
lieve myself in a pot. Sometimes I pissed and shat when the need struck me and let them beat me for having to clean the mess.
Collins finally arrived one day when I was tied over the barrel. He was wearing an eye patch. I laughed at him. He asked if I wanted to speak to him. I laughed harder. He left, and things continued as they had.
I woke to someone whispering, “Will,” and opened my eyes to see Sarah. I was lying on my pallet, chained to the wall but not restrained in other ways. I was wearing a shirt and breeches. She was wearing a fine dress with stays. Her hair was prettily coiffed atop her head.
Someone was in the room behind her. I ignored them and met her teary gaze.
“Why are you letting them do this to you, Will?” she whispered. “There is no need.”
My Horse eyed her warily, but I smiled. “I am not wrong.”
She sighed. “That is unimportant. Their silly ideas are unimportant. You surviving until we can see Father is important.”
“That will not make things right. He is the cause of this.”
She sighed again and leaned close to breath in my ear. “There is a ship following us.”
At first I could not understand why that was important, and then hope exploded painfully in my heart such that tears sprang to my eyes.
She had pushed herself to standing and turned to address someone. “I am sure our father will be displeased if you kill him.”
“I will not let them kill him,” Thorp said. “He is doing precious little to keep himself alive, though. Can you get him to cooperate with Mister Collins?”
“I will see what I can do,” she said tightly. “We Williamses are a very stubborn people.”
I thought on his question. “Nay,” I gasped.
“Will!” Sarah snapped and stomped her foot. “Be reasonable!”
“I will not forsake Gaston,” I said calmly. “Though it means my death.”
“Will!” she implored, her gaze searching mine.
“I heard all you said, my dear sister. But if I forsake him, then that is meaningless.”
She squatted beside me again. “Will, do not do this. Collins is…” She glanced over her shoulder at Thorp.
Wolves Page 6
